A NATION CHALLENGED: MILITARY

A NATION CHALLENGED: MILITARY; HOSTILE FIRE KILLS FIRST U.S. SOLDIER SINCE WAR'S ONSET

By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: January 5, 2002

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4—
An Army Special Forces soldier was killed today in a brief firefight in eastern Afghanistan, the first death of an American serviceman by hostile fire since the war started nearly three months ago, American officials said.

A Central Intelligence Agency officer was seriously wounded in the midafternoon attack by unknown assailants shortly after a small team of Americans and their Afghan allies had met with Afghan leaders from the area near Khost and Gardez to try to obtain information about the location of Al Qaeda members.

The Pentagon tonight identified the soldier killed as Sgt. First Class Nathan Ross Chapman, 31, of San Antonio, who was stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash. [Page A6.]

The C.I.A. officer's wounds were not life-threatening, and he was not identified. Ten other Americans have died in or near Afghanistan during this conflict.

Details of the small-arms attack were sketchy. Military officials said tonight that they did not know the precise location of the ambush, how many gunmen were involved or how many assailants were killed when the Americans returned fire. The military sent a force by helicopter from a base in Afghanistan to secure the area and help the Americans, military officials said.

The American casualties and the airstrikes in the same region indicated the perils still facing United States forces. ''Much very dangerous work remains to be done,'' Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of the allied operation in Afghanistan, said in Tampa, Fla., where his headquarters are situated. ''We still have a responsibility, as part of this mission, to root out pockets of resisting Taliban forces, as well as to continue the work to root out groups of Al Qaeda.''

Several miles from the firefight, American warplanes bombed a training camp of Al Qaeda in Khost Province for the second consecutive day. Pentagon officials said Al Qaeda had been regrouping at the Zhawar Kili Al-Badr site, a compound of caves, bunkers and buildings about three miles from Pakistan. The officials said Al Qaeda had been using the camp as a way station to Pakistan.

Today's airstrike followed a bombardment on Thursday, in which four B-1B bombers and other attack planes dropped more than 100 satellite-guided, 2,000-pound bombs on the complex.

The rugged mountainous terrain around Khost was a place where top-ranking Afghan resistance commanders maintained underground headquarters, mountain redoubts and clandestine weapons stocks during their successful war against Soviet troops from December 1979 to February 1989, according to American intelligence veterans. The region today is one of the last where American forces have yet to forge working relations with local tribal leaders, a hallmark of the successful campaign from northern Afghanistan to the southern areas around Kandahar.

The Khost area, military officials said today, is filled with bandits, renegade Taliban fighters and die-hard Al Qaeda warriors eager to claim a bounty that American intelligence officials say has been placed on American soldiers. ''There are a lot of rough spots in Afghanistan, but this is one of the roughest,'' said Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, senior spokesman for the United States Central Command in Tampa.

General Franks said the airstrikes this week illustrated the shifting character of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan: ''I think what we will see in the days, weeks, months ahead will be a very calm atmosphere where we're continuing to work with the Afghan people and this interim Afghan government, and I think that that will be interrupted by spikes of adrenaline where we, in fact, have gained intelligence that will move us on to a target.''

General Franks said the United States campaign to hunt down Al Qaeda extended beyond Afghanistan, but he warned against fixating on any specific country. American officials said this week that surveillance flights off the coast of Somalia had been increased to detect any Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan by ship. One official said Al Qaeda had a presence in Somalia, but he added that there was no conclusive evidence to suggest that terrorists from Afghanistan had fled to Somalia.

General Franks said: ''Somalia, as a failed state, is an area where we believe in the past, certainly, there has been some terrorist activity, and I think we'll take a hard look at it to be sure that that's not the case today. And if that becomes the case, then we'll look at it the same way we look at other harbors for terrorists globally.''

The United States is closely monitoring possible terrorist activities in several countries from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, the Central Command's focus, but General Franks said the military was not taking any direct military action outside Afghanistan. ''We have a great many activities going on in several countries in the region, but we're not involved in this kinetic activity, such as we've been involved in, in Afghanistan,'' he said.

Inside Afghanistan, the general said, American military teams have searched 40 of 48 suspected weapons-production sites, but have found no hard evidence that Osama bin Laden and his forces developed any chemical, radiological or biological arms.